Light emitting diodes are commonly used as indicators of certain conditions with respect to particular electrical circuits. Frequently, a bank of LEDs are mounted in an equipment rack so that the group of condition indicators may be easily viewed. A common structure for such mounting includes a base member with a plurality of individual LED lamp socket assemblies screwed to the base. Typical lamp socket assemblies include a housing with contact members separated by an insulating member, all attached with rivets or other attaching mechanisms to the housing. Typical LED lamps for use with such sockets incude a housing with a lamp mounted thereto and connected through a circuit board to wire leads. The wire leads extend from the circuit board through the bottom of the housing so that when the lamp housing is inserted into the socket, the wire leads are located on opposite sides of the insulating barrier between the insulating barrier and the contact springs.
The indicated lamp receiving structure is a problem in that the wire leads or the connections of the wire leads to the circuit board or the connections of the circuit board to the LED are weaker and, hence, fail before it is possible to insert the leads as appropriate in the receiving socket between the contact springs and the insulating barrier. In addition, the indicated structure results in a large number of piece parts and a labor-intensive assembly. The present invention is directed to reducing the number of piece parts and assembly time, as well as reducing the failure rate of LED lamps during insertion of same in a socket structure.